(Photo is Endeavour Space Shuttle Blastoff by jurvetson)

Thankfully Heath Mill Studios have written up 3/4 of it already, so here’s a digest:

Digbeth triple launch

At 5pm, Heath Mill Studios are opening their doors for the first time and Bay Leaf, a new Bangladeshi restaurant in the Custard Factory, are providing the food – I think this counts as their launch too.

At 8pm everyone’s going to leg it over to The Rainbow for the BASS Festival launch. Ghostpoet‘s performing and he’s meant to be good.

BE at the mac**

If theatre’s your thing then the BE Festival is launching at the MAC tonight with various things and stuff happening there. The festival itself doesn’t start for a good few weeks, but you can’t knock the enthusiasm to get started.

On top of all of that

They’re not launching anything, but Yo La Tengo, Welsh National Opera and Doc Brown are all in town (not all on the same bill, more’s the pity). Aren’t we lucky to live somewhere with so much stuff going on? Yes, we are.

(* not everything)
(** see what I did there?)

The theme for this year’s BASS Festival (9-25 June, all over Birmingham) is revolution:

Through music, dance, spoken word and theatre REVOLUTION will be explored in terms of physical movement, music as a weapon of change and celebrating the creators of radical new music and styles.

There’s a press release here which has more info about who’s performing where.

Punch are offering between £500 – £3000 through their BASS Commissions fund for artists to create new work in music, dance, spoken word and theatre.

Here’s the themes that they’re wanting commissioned pieces to explore;

Musical Revolutionaries: – artists who have changed the face of Black music

Promoting the next generation – what is the next big thing?

Showcases for heroes in the emergence of Dubstep, Hip Hop, Afrobeat Jazz.

May the Circle be Unbroken: Sounds that have made the soundtrack to changes in society such as Steel Pulse or Gospel singers

Spins and Flips: revolutions on the dance floor

Transformations: can you through words imagine new ways to present work or new stages to present it

There’s also a BASS Talent Award to be claimed, in association with Aspire 4u. Young people aged between 16-24 will have the opportunity to produce a specially commissioned performance, with an award of up to £1000.

For more information and how to apply, visit the Punch website. Deadline for applications is 12 noon on 14 February 2011.

The days were getting longer, which was probably just as well for Rhubarb Rhubarb, who seemed to doing loads. Birmingham presented its final bid for the City of Culture and we crossed our fingers. Temper filled the streets with fashion icons. We looked at the trailer for Soulboy and discovered the blog for Reuben Colley Fine Arts.

The Arts Council announced a 0.5% cut in funding to RFO’s. Boo. We found some familiar faces in Synth Eastwood’s video tomfoolery from the Flatpack Festival. Treasured at the MAC looked good.

Bright Space started looking for people to get involved in Platform and I asked ‘Does Birmingham Future interest you?‘ and got a fairly resounding ‘Um, who?’. Theatre folk came together and spoke easy, the newly opened Zellig hosted the Bass Festival’s Fight The Power exhibition and there was talk of verbalising and visualisation.

Creative Republic launched Invisible City and Marketing Birmingham released a new promotional video for the city that featured a host of creative talent.

The Created in Birmingham closed its shutters for the last time at the end of the month. Someone kissed the feedback book:

International Dance Festival Birmingham came to an end too, while Ian looked forward to what was in store at the 2010 BASS Festival and I had a peek at the Lichfield Festival’s line-up.

RoguePlay left the Custard Factory, I noticed Writing West Midlands for the first time, Ikon announced their series of ‘Favourite Things’ talks, the Daze-Ray exhibition occupied a corner of the Jewellery Quarter and IPEX took over the NEC.

hobbypopMUSEUM spent some time at Eastside Projects, the annual Cure Leukemia Art Auction took place, Ben Javens made a tea towel, end-of-year-show season started up and there was a photography exhibition at the Custard Factory.

I went to visit the flashy gizmos at University of Birmingham’s Heritage and Culture Learning Hub too.

Anyway, I’ve had an invite to the launch of a publication celebrating the ‘vitality, innovation and diversity’ of this group that comprises:

• Bass Festival
• Birmingham Book Festival
• Birmingham International Jazz and Blues Festival
• Fierce Festival
• Flatpack Festival
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
• Supersonic Festival

[* not sure what I’m implying here]

**UPDATE**

Ah, it is a Proper Thing, I’ve found a blog post about it and a picture too:

We’ve never had a caption competition on CiB as far as I can remember. Just a thought…

**Another UPDATE**

Ask and you shall receive – this was submitted to the CiB email address:

Splendid.

Here’s a link to the opening speech and here’s a video of Ammo Talwar walking round and explaining the exhibition:

It’s at the Zellig Gallery (Custard Factory) until 26 June.

Also, Andrew Dubber (he who filmed those two videos) has been doing some work with Punch Records and explains what all that’s about in this post.

There are two parts to this one:

• A debate on Thurs 3 June
• An installation by Raycho Stanev from 3-19 June

Both at Friction Arts’ The Edge. Having seen mentions of this all over the place I’m guessing it’s going to be reasonably popular, which is good.

Nicky Digbeth gives the info:

The Great Excursion will be in Friction Arts’ home The Edge, Cheapside 3rd-19th June, and will kick off with a Critical Debate from 6pm this Thurs 3rd June, with a panel that includes Ammo Talwar (Punch), Paul Murphy (The Destroyers), Mukhtar Dar (The Drum) and Paradox (Munchbreak)

The debate is also part of the BASS Festival, which kicks off today.

BASS Festival is the UK’s only month-long celebration of Black Music and Art. The festival is now in its fifth year and this year’s line up of events, produced by Punch Records, includes new commissions, gigs, exhibitions, master classes, showcases, club nights, theatre, conferences and film.

Handily, you can check out the brochure and browse what’s on right here:

There’s also a theme for this year’s festival, which is explained here:

The theme for BASS 2010 is DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) forms the building blocks of life and controls the development and functioning of all known living organisms. But what does DNA mean to us individually in the 21st century? Identity, test tubes, control, heritage, science, ID cards, family, databases, samples, genomes, protest? The fifth BASS festival will explore how DNA varies and develops, whether caused by external forces, or by personal development, enabling us to rethink our evolving identities.

If all that hasn’t satisfied your needs, you can get more details on the BASS Festival website here.